Tag: workshops

The new release of ASP.NET and Web Tools for Visual Studio 2013 puts the power to build cutting-edge websites right at your fingertips. Even better? Once you build a beautiful, interactive site, you can easily deploy and scale it with Microsoft Azure!

Join us for a free WebCamp and learn how to elevate your coding – in just one day. WebCamps are live, no-fluff events created for developers, by developers. You’ll learn from lively, informative experts who start with the basics and ramp up to advanced topics as the day goes on. Here are some of the topics we’ll cover in these hands-on sessions:

Introduction to ASP.NET and Visual Studio 2013 Web Tooling

Building web applications using the latest ASP.NET technologies

Building web front ends for both desktop and mobile using the latest web standards

API Services for both web and devices

Running, improving and maintaining a site in the real world

Real-time communications with SignalR

Don’t miss this free opportunity to sharpen your coding skills – regardless of which languages or platforms you use. We speak them all. We’ll also give away a $100 Microsoft Store gift card to one lucky attendee at each event! You must be present to win.*

If you live in the Connecticut area and want to learn more about Windows Phone and Game development you are in luck! I have a bunch of workshops lined up over the next several weeks at the Microsoft Stores in Danbury Connecticut and West Hartford Connecticut.

Stop by, build an app or just learn a bit more about Windows Phone Development.

Welcome to WPdev Saturday!

Please join Nick Landry and other Windows Phone community experts for WPdev Saturday on February 22, 2014 in New Jersey for a fun day of mobile app building. WPdev Saturday is an event brought to you by Nokia DVLUP and sponsored by Microsoft.

Why?

The goal is to help you overcome any obstacles that might be preventing you from publishing an app. Whether you’re working on your first app or putting the polish on your 20th, all are welcome. If you do not have any apps in the works, then come and build a Microsoft App Studio app with our help.

On September 28th, Microsoft Technical Evangelist Jim O’Neil held a Windows Game Development workshop in the Farmington campus. I was in attendance as a “shadow” since I have not held an event yet. My first event is on October 12th in Farmington (more on that later). We had 16 attendees that were a mix of young adults, hardcore developers and developers wanting to learn more about Windows Game Development.

Jim took the lead by introducing some casual gaming concepts and tools to create these games. He showed off a few of his games along with some others that are in the store. The audience provided great feedback in terms of what they would like to see and try to create. Once the slides were out of the way, we got down to creating apps.

We used Construct 2 to demonstrate how easy it is to get started. If you are not familiar with Construct 2, it is an IDE built on top of Visual Studio. They make the interface very simple to create casual games such as some platformers, top down views along with a few others.

We modified the standard Constcut 2 turtorial to add some Windows features, such as Touch and Snapped Mode. (These Windows Game templates can be found on our Github repository.) After adding the objects to the screen, we got into the event handling aspect of Construct 2. The ease of putting together commands for all of the objects can allow even the novice developer to become seasoned quickly.

The theory behind the “event sheet” in Construct 2 is the same pattern and practice as other development methodologies such as MVC. In the MVC pattern, you have the Model, which is your data storage or object. In Construct 2 these are the Sprites, System, Touch etc. The View which is your presentation of the Model can be found in the Layouts of Construct 2. And then you have the Controller, which provides access to the Model and the View for handling and manipulating data or business rules. This is the Event Sheet.

After wiring up the event sheets to the objects we got a full functioning game by lunch time. There is still more to do, such as exporting to Visual Studio and then importing into the Windows Store but this gave the audience a great jump start on building a game.

So what’s next? Finish that game. Or take our starter kits and build upon them.

If gaming is not for you, then on October 12th I will be going over app development for Windows 8. We will be looking at Bing maps and plotting data points all with HTML5 and JavaScript.

Whether you want to develop Games or Apps we’ve got workshops for you! These free hands-on workshops are perfect for beginning developers and experienced coders alike. Get individual guidance on marketing and publishing your app or game. Who knows? Your app could entertain, educate or even change the world!

Seating is very limited – Registration is required for each workshop.
While you learn how to leverage well known open data APIs (such as Twitter, Meetup, Instagram, Edmunds and more) through our easy Starter Kits we’ll also show you how to approach marketing and publishing your app in the Windows and Windows Phone stores.
By attending a workshop you will:
1. Code Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and/or Windows Phone 8 apps by leveraging our APIMASH starter kits
2. Publish your apps to the Windows and Windows Phone stores
3. Market your app online and through social media to drive downloads